LeSean McCoy

Week 3 was a crazy, crazy week. Thanks Trump! I kidd. Blake Bortles, Case Keenum, and Eli Manning all threw for at least three touchdowns, with Bortles throwing four! The Jets dominated. It gets crazier, though. Eight of the games on Sunday had the road teams as favorites. The Jaguars, Colts, Bears, Jets, Bills, and Redskins all took care of business at home. Bow wow wow yipee yo yipee ya! Home dogs! The Lions should have won and the Chargers…well, just scroll down to the recap of that game and all will become clear.

The 2017-2018 Razzball Commenter Leagues for Basketball are now open. Get more info and join here!

Before we begin, yes, you did just read team name created by a meme that died probably 12 years ago, but this team name brought me fantasy glory last year, so deal with it.

Welcome everyone to Week 3 of the NFL season! If you’re like me, you’re absolutely pumped after watching an excellent Week 2, and an even better start to the 3rd week with that highly-entertaining and highly-shocking Thursday Night Football game. I mean, where did that come from?

Anyway, today is Saturday, and you know what that means! It’s time to get to some Razzball-certified picks and players to help you guys out with those lineups.

Let’s get to it!

Check out Rudy’s exclusive DFS and season-long tools that are sure to help you be profitable this fantasy football season!

Razzball Football’s partner FantasyDraft is starting a new sign-up promotion this week, all newdepositing signups receive a free $4 “Everyone Wins” NFL GPP ticket for the upcoming Sunday slate along with offering all players 4% cash back on their initial deposits!

Another week of the NFL season is in the books, and we have a few more developments at the running back position to keep an eye on. There are a few injuries hitting the wire this week, and out in Seattle, a youngster is outplaying some familiar names. Over in Philadelphia, the guy who is supposed to be the lead back barely saw the field…

Razzball Football’s partner FantasyDraft is starting a new sign-up promotion this week, all newdepositing signups receive a free $4 “Everyone Wins” NFL GPP ticket for the upcoming Sunday slate along with offering all players 4% cash back on their initial deposits!

Does anyone else get the old Sherwin Williams jingle stuck in their head when they see Kerwynn Williams’s name? No? Just me?

Anyway, welcome to the 2017 Handcuff Report. For those who followed this post last season, welcome back. For those who are new, where were you last year? Too good for us? I have researched other available handcuff reports and tell give you my completely unbiased opinion that none of them are half as good as this one. Shame on you, and welcome.

So, first things first: what exactly is a handcuff? For the fantasy football n00bs out there, or perhaps for those who have taken the last few years off, a handcuff is a backup who will likely take over as the starter in the event of an injury, extreme ineffectiveness, off-the-field trouble, or coach’s decision. There are probably other reasons that I am forgetting here, but those are the most common one.

Most NFL teams now run a running back by committee of some sort. While not every team is as unpredictably maddening as the Patriots, most teams share the load in an effort to keep guys fresh and give defenses different looks. With fantasy leagues more competitive than ever, thanks to sites like Razzball offering great advice, it is important to recognize trends and identify value quickly. If you drafted a stud running back early, you might want to grab his handcuff in case of injury. Or if you went zero RB or went really light on RB early, you might want to squat on a couple handcuffs or, especially in PPR leagues, grab a change-of-pace/pass catching back. With the influx of young running backs and each team having two or three options this season, I tended to do the latter in drafts this year. For every Melvin Gordon, I have like two Shane Vereens or Theo Riddicks this year. Speaking of young running backs:

Well, that was… something. Not a really exciting day, right? We waited months and months for three players to go over 100 yards receiving today and only two rushers to go over 100 yards as well. We had a game in Green Bay where there should have been 800 points scored but neither team could get to 20.

Welcome to my weekly recap of the action we saw on Sunday. So, I physically can’t watch every play of all 12 or 13 games that go on during the afternoon, but I do watch about 6.5 hours of Redzone every Sunday, so you could say that me and Andrew Siciliano are kind of a thing. I’ll let you know how I interpret things that I see watching live and what I see in the box score. I’m not going to bore you with paragraphs upon paragraphs on each game but, I assure you that you will know the trends that you need to know to make decisions for your lineup the next coming week. Let’s start with the most exciting game from a fantasy stand point…

I can’t figure it out. I have spent years defending myself, and staving off attacks from everywhere and everyone, but I can’t, for the life of me, figure out why people like the Beatles. I know I am in the minority, and am always willing to admit that I am the oddball, but people are always more than happy to tell me that “I am wrong”, and “you don’t know what you are talking about”, and “they’re not really your children.”

Does this ever happen to you? Going against popular convention can be tricky, but sometimes you have to go with your gut. And my gut has said one thing very loud and clearly to me for this upcoming fantasy season… avoid LeSean McCoy.

The best thing about still being involved in fantasy baseball is that it means I am in the playoffs. While I am in many leagues, there are three which I consider the important leagues. I define “important” to mean there is a reasonable buy-in accompanied with it and an even more reasonable first place prize. Unsurprisingly, if you read my baseball posts, all three of these leagues are points leagues. Currently I am in the World Series in two of them, and the semi-finals of the third. Pulling off a three league win would be pretty sweet, but I’ve still got a long way to go.

The worst thing about still being involved in fantasy baseball is that it means my fantasy football research has been severely hindered and delayed. While I refuse to play in a pay league where the draft occurs more than a week before the regular season starts, this still gives me little time to prepare. And perhaps even worse, it reduces that amount of pre-draft advice I can attempt to sling your way. Not that many of you give a sh*t what I have to say, but I do have a handful of readers that have at least some interest in my posts.

Back by popular demand, it’s baaaaaaaaaack. (Thanks to the two of you who were interested.) After writing the “Predicting the Top 10” series the last few years, it was brought to my attention that a few others wrote similar articles in the past. To those that did, I pay homage to you.

This is an update to last year’s piece. I realize that ADP is fluid during the preseason, but unless an injury happens or someone completely balls out in the exhibition games, the top 10 seems to be pretty entrenched. This article is not deep and groundbreaking, but I enjoy taking nostalgic strolls down memory lane. In addition, there could be some nuggets of information that could be useful. It is often said that history repeats itself and we should learn from the past to prepare for the future.

If you want more analytical predictive tools, I highly recommend reading anything at numberFire, Rotoviz, and 4for4. Since I’m doing recommendations, I have to include the Footballguys, as everyone there is a brilliant fantasy football mind and a few took the time to give me feedback and help me out. And of course, last but not least, Rudy has done an amazing job with the tools and team football pages, Jay was the third-best ranker at FantasyPros last season, and Zach, Matt, and the whole crew are pumping out amazing content. With that said, here you go…

Basketball season is warming up. Check out Razzball Basketball, SON’s new home, for all your Fantasy B-ball needs!

Welcome to Razzball’s Fantasy Football Preview series, where yours truly will guide you, caress you, perhaps even coddle you through your draft preparations and processes. Mmm, processes. And while none of this may be legal and I’ll end up with multiple restraining orders, rest assured that we’ll all be the better for it. Maybe. We’ll go in depth (that’s what she said) at every position… well, the positions that actually count (I’m looking at you Kickers and DSTs…), going over some analysis, the tiers, and any illuminating observations I might have. Because light bulbs are just the coolest thing. Said everyone from the 1800s. Before you get settled down, please refer to Razzball’s 2017 Fantasy Football Draft Rankings, and specifically for this post, refer to our Running Back Rankings…

Hey everyone! I’ve joined the pristine group of Razzball Fantasy contributors to shine a light on the Fantasy Football season in hopes that you heed my words of wisdom and win your leagues.

In terms of specific players and projections, I will leave that to the other writers who are doing a magnificent job. My focus today will be on the draft itself and why it is so very important for you to do adequate homework before you head into your draft lobby. Nobody likes sitting there in a draft when you’re on the clock and you are completely clueless as to who you should draft, forcing you to panic-pick someone overrated that will end up on the waiver wire after Week 2.

In the words of wisdom from a great fantasy football player:

“You can’t win your league in the first three rounds of a draft, but you can lose your league in those rounds.” – Myself, obviously.

So what do I mean when I refer to “homework”? This post is going to focus on topics you need to be privy to before draft day…